Freshman Follies

June 19, 2001|By Jenny Lobasz Special to the Sun-Sentinel

Summer is almost here, but I'm still basking in the joy of having a full year of college behind me.

Whether I was discovering that the diseased shower floors must be avoided at all costs or churning out my first 20-page masterpiece, I must say that my freshman year at American University was a real learning experience.

Mercifully, the school year has ended and summer stretches before me like a blank notebook ready to be written in. Well, perhaps "blank" isn't quite the adjective to describe a summer filled with 40-hour workweeks. I suppose I should say, "summer stretches before me like the margins of a notebook ready to be written in."

Before I say farewell to this past semester and begin to rhapsodize about my momentous summer plans, let me give some advice to the incoming college freshmen and their apprehensive parents. Everyone can use a hand navigating those first couple of weeks at school, so for your benefit, here are the Top 20 Things I Learned My Freshman Year of College.

1. No one cares what you scored on the SAT.

2. It's impossible to keep in touch with every single person you ever knew in high school. If you can find the time to e-mail two or three of them more than once a month, then you're doing better than average.

3. While you may have spent the past four years capable of waking up at 6:30 a.m. and getting to school on time, as a college student you are physically unable to arise from your bed earlier than 10 a.m. (or 9, for the super-motivated).

5. Pedestrian meals such as "breakfast," "lunch" and "dinner" no longer exist. They are replaced with such favorites as the "noon snack," "2 o'clock snack," "4 o'clock snack," and so forth.

6. Once you have spent three days writing a 20-page paper on your favorite subject, it will cease to be your favorite subject. In fact, you will go to great lengths to avoid hearing about it ever again.

7. You don't have to be best friends with your roommate -- it's probably not even a good idea. After all, who wants to spend every moment of every day with the same person? As long as you get along and have similar clothes-sharing policies, you'll be fine.

8. You can go an entire year without learning your new friends' last names, but within a week of meeting them you'll know their instant-messenger screen name and their political affiliation.

10. Writing home takes too much time, but you'll spend hours on the Internet searching for the one South Park episode you don't have.

11. It's a small world after all. You may have thought you didn't know anyone at your school, but your next-door neighbor will have gone to summer camp with your first boyfriend's little sister, and that kid in your philosophy class will have met you three years ago at a youth conference.

12. You will not do laundry until you have run out of clean underwear, a point in time that usually coincides with a global breakdown of the washing machines.

13. Fire alarms are exponentially more likely to occur a) when you are in the shower and b) at 3 a.m., five minutes after you have finally fallen asleep.

14. Much like a car, the value of a $100 textbook drops to almost nothing the second you take it out of the bookstore.

15. A small trash can works better than a large one because it gets full before it gets ripe.

16. The administration will forget you're a student when you get a package or register for classes, but remember as soon as they can decrease your financial aid or charge you more miscellaneous fees.

17. You will learn more about the intimate details of your dormmates' lives than you ever wanted to know.

18. All-nighters only take their toll on your body if you spend them doing work. All-nighters playing Soul Caliber on Dreamcast don't count.

19. You will take great pride in your collection of obscure MP3s, for the sole purpose of being able to say you "liked Group X before they became famous/sold out/went commercial."

20. Pizza can be ordered around the clock, but Chinese only until 2:30 a.m.

Jenny Lobasz, a frequent contributor, will be a sophomore at American University in Washington, D.C. E-mail her c/o mmorales@sun-sentinel.com.